Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! (龍が如く 見参!, lit. “Like a Dragon Arrives!”, a.k.a. Yakuza Kenzan!)
Kenzan! was the first Yakuza game to come to the Playstation 3 system. Released March 6th 2008 in Japan it was to be the template for every subsequent Yakuza game this generation. Many things that appear in the later games of the series show up for the first time here. From the fighting styles and revelations to the technology used for the facial animation.
Kenzan is a major departure for the Yakuza series, set in Edo in 1605 (instead of modern day Tokyo), it tells a fictionalized version of Miyomoto Musashi’s life. From his invention of a two sword fighting style and ideology to his encounters with many other samurai that would have lived outside of his own time period. It has the same kind of gameplay as a regular Yakuza game but instead of fist fights this time there’s a focus on swordplay with 4 different styles and a bunch of different swords to choose from.
Perhaps the strangest part of the game is seeing the different characters from Yakuza taking different roles.
That’s Kenzan in a nutshell. A strange “What If” tale starring your favorite Yakuza characters in 1600s Japan.